{7w6d}

It was probably the most terrified I've ever been.

After marvelling at a full week free of spotting, worried only about the fact that I'm still not really experiencing any pregnancy symptoms, I was not so pleasantly surprised to see the brown discharge covering my pantyliner. However, if my body was going to choose this very moment to start spotting again, it couldn't have been a better time or place to do so.

I was in the bathroom at the R.E.'s office, waiting to go into my second sonogram to see if I was still growing a little miracle. Up until that point during the day, I'd been pretty calm. Spot free-and with no painful cramps-most likely meant that everything was going to be OK.

But then there was the spotting, which meant everything was all wrong.

As soon as I walked out of the restroom-before I could even share the bleak spotting news with my husband-we were ushered into the sterile ultrasound room and prepared for what would either be one of the most amazing moments of our life, or quite possibly the worst.

As Dr. Greene positioned me in the stirrups and prepared the machine, I couldn't breathe. I wasn't able wrap my mind around the fact that we were about to see a heartbeat in the next sixty seconds, and the anticipation was almost too much to handle, because at that very moment I was one hundred percent sure there was no longer life inside of me.

And then we saw it.

The tiny, flickering flutter of a heart.

And at that moment-for the first time-I knew I was pregnant. The beta blood tests, the positive home pregnancy tests, even the previous sonogram of the gestational sac and fetal pole; none of it seemed real. None of it was moving or breathing, it was all an illusion; just a memory.

A possibility.

Everyone assured me that hearing the heartbeat would make this child real; but for me, it was seeing the small, subtle movement that woke me up to reality. For the first time, I was staring at a screen that was showing me something alive; something that couldn't be printed out on a sheet of paper, couldn't be captured unless you were actually standing there, staring at that tiny little heart, beating away at 165 beats per minute.

What in the world did I ever do to deserve this.

After another quick scan around the lady parts, we were assured that everything was progressing just as it should and measuring right on schedule. We were on our way to a very healthy pregnancy, and our possibility of miscarriage had just dropped to less than ten percent. I was given the green light to stop all shots and medications, ween myself off the dexamethasone and schedule an appointment with my regular OB like a normal, pregnant girl should.

But as I listened to Dr. Greene's instructions and congratulations, all I could think about was the picture I had taken in my mind of the second heart beating in my body, the quick, steady thump and whoosh sound strumming like a soundtrack to an old film.

We aren't out of the woods yet, it's still very early and we have a ways to go. I'm nervous about stopping my medicine after all this time, and I'm horrified that being a normal, pregnant girl means I won't get to see my baby again for a whole month at the OB office. But I'll just keep reminding myself that God brought us this far, and He has no intentions of leaving us hanging here alone.

He'll take care of us.

All three of us.

And in the meantime, I'll keep replaying that image over and over in my head, the solid proof that miracles really do manifest. One of them is in fact developing inside of me right now; forming limbs and organs, loosing it's little tail and looking less like a reptile and more like a little person every day.

And from the moment this little one enters into this world, he or she will know how extraordinary they are, and how amazing their life story really is. I hope there's never a day that passes that I don't praise God and glorify Him for this miracle, so full of gratitude for the opportunity to grow an answered prayer.

And a second heartbeat.

Making the decision to have a child - it's momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking outside your body.

-Elizabeth Stone